Montreal Unveils 60-Point Anti-Corruption Plan

Montreal Mayor Michael Applebaum has given his administration one month to put in place 60 recommendations aimed at preventing collusion and corruption in the awarding of city contracts.

The measures are contained in a report released on Wednesday by former Parti Québécois municipal affairs and transport minister Jacques Léonard, who was appointed last January to look for ways to prevent future abuses.

Léonard, who led a committee made up of city bureaucrats and retired police officers, highlighted a lack of ethics among elected officials and city employees, as well as a lack of cohesion between the city and its boroughs.

The Léonard Report blames disconnects among the city's brass — both administrative and political - for opening the door to corruption.

“The city of Montreal needs to be a solid administration," Léonard said Wednesday afternoon.

Applebaum said he supports all of Léonard's recommendations, including the the centralization of Montreal's finance department.

The mayor said the move will help ensure borough finances are kept in order.

"The finance department … must be able to look at the books and make sure that the city is being financed properly," Applebaum said.

Vision Montréal calls for ethics commissioner

Louise Harel, the leader of municipal opposition party Vision Montréal, said she is concerned the report doesn't go far enough.

She said the city needs an ethics commissioner to ensure corruption does not continue.

Meanwhile, Applebaum is adamant that the full extent of the Léonard Report's recommendations will be brought into force.

He said a committee will be created to oversee the integration of the report's findings. The committee will include a representative from the province's treasury board, who is expected to take a closer look at how Montreal awards city contracts.

"It will be very difficult for the next administration to take this report and put it aside," he said.

"They're going to have to implement it."

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10 Commandments Of The Mafia

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Quebec's corruption inquiry has heard an exhaustive history of the Italian Mafia -- how it was created, how it got into the construction business, and how pervasive it is.
One witness, Italian-born criminology PhD Valentina Tenti, shared a document recovered by Italian police that purports to hold the "Ten Commandments" of the Sicilian Mafia, known the "Cosa Nostra" (Our Thing).
With files from The Canadian Press

No one can present himself directly to one of our friends ("amico nostro"). There must be a third party to do it.

Always being available for Cosa Nostra is a duty -- even if your wife is about to give birth.

When asked for any information, the answer must be the truth.

Money cannot be taken if it belongs to others or to other families.

People who can't be part of Cosa Nostra: Anyone who has a close relative in the police, anyone with a traitor for a relative, anyone who behaves badly and doesn't hold to moral values.